Monday, June 22, 2015

The Latest From Hung

The top image is a manga of the scene from the end of the awful Tsai interview piece in TIME netizens sent around. The photo was a big hit with people in Taiwan. Incredibly, FocusTaiwan, the government news organization, posted the bottom image to its Facebook page.

If you can hack some Chinese, enjoy the riches of this April interview with Hung from a HKK media outfit. In it she claims that the M503 air route near the midline of the strait makes Taiwan safer, argues that Malaysia rejected Singapore because the Chinese are too hardworking, and many other wonderful observations. I haven't read it all yet because I'm afraid my IQ might implode.

All of us tracking this election are getting up every morning humming with anticipation at Hung's latest antics. Tonight the Straits Exchange Foundation was giving a banquet for Taiwanese businessmen in China, and Hung decided to go in the morning, then canceled in the afternoon (Storm media). All without informing the SEF.

Her campaign team is coalescing, and there's a good leavening of people from the Sean Lien campaign in Taipei, which was crushed by Ko Wen-je in the Nov mayor's election. Naturally we are all very happy to hear that she has gathered such an experienced team around her.

Meanwhile the controversy over her visit to the US continues, with FocusTaiwan rounding up the latest news. KMT Chairman Eric Chu insists that she is going to visit the US after being confirmed as the candidate at the July 19th party congress, but she is still insisting that there isn't enough time, with only six months before the election.

I can't wait to see the leaked reports on her visit if she goes.
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With regards to the parkinson cancer association study, a propr studying looking into such association and NOT including smoking status is a bit of a wtf and makes any result from that paper essentially worthless.

Talk about finding the most middle-of-nowhere regional state college to grab a masters degree. It is just a pathetic attempt to get an American degree to put on your resume, regardless of how real or not. That diploma is not worth the paper it is printed on. After all, who really checked back in the days. I bet most Taiwanese are still confused over UC vs Cal State.

I’m glad it’s a real university though – it’d be a shame if something happened that forced the KMT to find a new candidate.

Something I don’t understand… Hung’s now saying that her idea of a peace treaty would require the PRC to recognize the ROC’s existence. How is that at all compatible with a One China policy? It sounds like Two Chinas to me. It’s basically the light blue position (permanent status quo) even if no one ever uses that term. It’s also tolerable to light greens. Anyone who could pull that off would be a hero in Taiwan. The problem is that, because Hung is making it sound like a short-term goal, it’s even less realistic than the light green position of eventual independence.

I'm worried by how little use the Greens are making of Hung's multiple outrageous statements. She should be the easiest candidate in the world to defeat but the Greens are hardly using her words against her. They're letting her get away easy. This should be an easy blowout but they're letting Hung get close to Tsai in the polls.

Imagine my surprise to learn that Ms. Hung graduated from my alma mater while was there! Especially when I couldn't figure out which of my fellow students she was! It turns out she was only a summer student who only spent a limited number of weeks there.

I was surprised by the comment that the government of Taiwan doesn't recognized the university, but that seems to have been straightened out at Taiwan does indeed recognize it.

So to provide some information about the place in the early 90s to anyone who cares:Missouri decided to transform NMSU from a typical state regional school into a more elite liberal arts school. The early 90s were in the middle of that transformation. (perhaps one can see a result of that in the mention of NMSU (now Truman) in the beginning of Jennifer Lawrence's film "Winter's Bone) Undergrad students were expected to take a lot of classes outside of their majors in order to get a broad education. Scholarships were given to encourage bright students. The school still held some characteristics of a typical regional school, but it also offered much for student who wanted to learn more.

NMSU had a sister-school relationship with Ming Chuan University (銘傳大學) which at the time was an all-girls school. As such NMSU had a number of female students from Taiwan. This was good for me as one of them became my wife. The Taiwanese girls did a lot of hanging out together - in fact one apartment building in the area became a sort of "Taiwanese-town".

I was already in a pretty steady relationship with my wife by 1991, when Ms. Hung graduated, so if she had made her presence known much within the Taiwanese community there I suspect I would have heard something about it particularly since she was already a legislator.

If one had time and were willing to get to know the people, NMSU would certainly have given you a view of America most Taiwanese don't get. We had a lot of farm kids (who did well - they were hard workers and studied). We had kids from Wisconsin, Chicago, Iowa, Missouri. We didn't have a lot of rich kids like the Ivy League schools. I later attended UVa and was shocked at housing prices. Everything was in the triple digits for monthly rent! And people had nice cars! At NMSU the few people with nice cars were the foreigners whose parents could afford to send them there and pay out-of-country tuition.

There were parties, but I doubt you could call it a party school. If you wanted to go to a proper dance club it was 90 minutes away in Columbia, Missouri. The same was true if you wanted to go to a shopping mall or a fancy restaurant.

I'm not sure what her "Master of Art" degree was about. Was it about art? Was it about the art of doing some particular thing (why not "Master of Liberal Arts"). I said the school still had characteristics of its earlier years as a mediocre regional school, and I suspect that degree may be one of them (but I hope not).

Ms. Hung was in her 40s when she went to NMSU. So if I ever saw her it wouldn't be surprising if I didn't remember her. I was in my early 20s so she would have been well outside my interest. But, perhaps it is simply the power of suggestion, I seem to recall at one point seeing an older Asian woman and asking one of the teachers who she was. We didn't have many Asian women above the age of 30 on campus. And the teacher seemed to not want to talk about it and just said she was getting an advanced degree. I would love to see a picture of Ms. Hung on campus when she was studying there and see if it jogs any memories for me.

Anyway, she could have learned a lot about America while she was there had she the time and the inclination.

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